How to accelerate your riding skills with an eMTB?

With the right trail and an eMTB you can rapidly take your riding skills to the next level much faster than you can on an acoustic bike. That's the theory and we sent Mark out on the latest Canyon Spectral:ON bike to put it to the test. The benefit of that motor is that it can power you back up to the top of your favourite climb without draining your legs of the energy they need to nail every feature on the descent. Lockdown has had some surprising and unexpected benefits. If you’d told me a year ago that despite being restricted to trails you can reach from your front door, one year on I’d be a much better rider for it, I’d have been sceptical at best. But that is indeed what has happened. It’s not been purely down to lockdown of course. It’s been a combination of staying local, having an e-MTB and my favourite trail being short and part of a sessionable loop. These three things have combined to accelerate my riding skills progression – something that I have badly needed for quite some time. The misconception with eMTBs from the very start has been that they are somehow only of use to people who are old, disabled or just lazy. If you are fit, healthy and young then you should seemingly restrict yourself to pedal power alone for your off road fun. That’s never sat well with me, ever since I first threw my leg over an ebike at the London Bike show almost a decade ago. To me they have always been a tool that would allow me to not work out less but actually do more. More miles, more hills and ultimately more fun.